Raising bees holistically in New Hampshire

My Best Moves of 2011

The bees do the waggle dance but those who know me cringe at the thought of me on the dance floor. With that in mind, we’ll keep this overdue posting about my best steps forward as a developing beekeeper.

Leaving them be…

2011 was a tough year for me as a beek. I knew I was in trouble when Marriott sent me an email in June saying I had already spent 50+ nights in a Marriott in 2011 and I didn’t start traveling until March. I finished the year with 100 nights in a hotel and once again qualifying for Executive Platinum on American. No wonder my backside looks like seat 1F! All of the travel was great for my retirement plan but not so good for my hobbies. Luckily, bees really do not need us, so possibly, the #1 thing I did right this year was to leave them alone and not continually bother them. I wanted to grow the apiary this year and they rewarded me for my travel. I started the season with 5 hives and 1 nuc and enter winter with 9 hives, 6 nucs and 70 pounds of honey in the cabinet. Not a stellar honey year but they made a lot of wax to fill those extra boxes!

The apiary in Sullivan

Buying local overwintered nucs…

2011 is also the year I quit buying packages. Readers will know I do not believe in them and instead I purchased 2 overwintered nucs from Mike Palmer plus 6 queens for requeening. Both nucs ended up as 1 deep (Mike only sells deep nucs) and 4 mediums high. All did well and I expect to have to split both hives early next season. I will pull the deep off of each hive while the bees are still in the upper mediums. The best part of picking up the nucs was the couple of hours Mike and I spent chatting about bees and preparing for the next paragraph. I’ll never know as much about beekeeping as Mike Palmer has already forgotten. He has been a great mentor to me and I will be forever grateful.

Nurse bees caring for queen cells on harvest day

Raising my own queens…

I started the apiary in 2008 with the concept that I wanted to improve the genetics of the bees in my care. As bees fly over such a great distance, I believe it does take a village and cannot be done on your own. On a nice Sunday in May, I made the first true step. Gayla and I hosted Mike’s queen rearing class as presented to the Monadnock Beekeepers Association. Of the 20 grafts we made, 17 survived. We split the virgin queens among the class with me keeping 5 that all went into my own nucs–all now overwintering in the Sullivan apiary. Several of the others did not make it. I heard one didn’t return from her mating flight and I think 2 others died. One of mine died but they raised her daughter so I maintained the 5 nucs. I wrapped them for winter and hopefully will hive them come spring.

Native NE wildflowers make a great bee pasture

Planting bee pasture…

Sullivan, NH is a beautiful area with lots of fallow fields blossoming summer long. I decided I wanted to add to this by planting a part of our acreage with native New England wildflowers. The area was about 200’x40′ and proved to be a GREAT decision! It was gorgeous (I planted about 4x as much seed as needed for the area) and best of all, you could always hear the bees when walking through it. Gayla put in a squash garden right between the apiary and the bee pasture, so the girls never had to fly very far. Interestingly, you could still track the bees leaving and entering the hives and see most were usually heading elsewhere. None-the-less, that garden was continually abuzz and all of our honey this year came from Sullivan. I will definitely at least double the area this spring.

Jim Tew demonstrates splitting a hive

EAS…

The northeast lucked out and the Eastern Apicultural Society annual meeting was in Providence, RI (and Burlington, VT this year!). Nothing like spending 5 days listening to the brightest minds in the business share their knowledge and research. Folks like Dr. Jim Tew, Kim Flottum, Jennifer Berry, Mike Palmer, Dan Conlon, David Mendes, Jim Pettis, Randy Oliver and so many more all in one place talking about bees! If you were there and did not come away with a thousand ideas, you spent too much time with the exhibitors! EAS is a wonderful organization and the dinners with other beekeepers were as interesting as the classes.

If you can’t attend any of the major meetings get off your duff and attend your local one! Beekeeping is not a solitary hobby. Follow the examples set by the bees and socialize with other beekeepers. You will be better for it and may help others by sharing your experience. A special thanks to Dan Conlon for spending so much time with me at the meeting. I learned a lot and enjoy the friendship!

Bees chewing through paer after combining 2 hives

Knowing when to grow ’em and when to fold ’em…

My apologies to Kenny Rogers.

Keeping in mind my first point above, I do believe proper apiary management includes occasional manipulation of the hive. I am not a purist who believes in simply letting the bees do their own thing all the time. I think those folks are beehavers, as in now they have bees and now they don’t. I am trying to become a beekeeper. That means controlling swarms, knowing when to accept losses and taking steps when a hive simply is not going to make it.

We all know a hive is meant to swarm. That is how bees reproduce. As beekeepers, we try to prevent swarming (economic loss, neighbor relations) by observing the hive and knowing when to do a split. Whether controlling mites by breaking the brood cycle and letting the bees raise their own queen or simply adding a queen the next day to keep up production, splitting is a great way to grow the apiary or to help someone else start beekeeping by giving them the bees. My splits this year added 2 hives and 6 nucs to the fold.

The next step in this progression is knowing when to combine hives to save one that will not make it on it’s own. Never combine 2 hives that are not healthy or you will simply make another sick hive and continue the lousy genetics. By properly combining hives you save the bees that would otherwise die and keep them productive in the new hive. As they are only workers and (by then) a few drones, you do not affect the genetics of the healthy hive. Naturally, you do not do this with a hive that is diseased (AFB, chalkbrood, etc) or has a large mite infestation as that WILL affect the healthy hive.

Hives strapped down during "Hurricane Week". We received over 10" of rain and the hives were fine.

Off with her head…

Sometimes experiments go awry. Ever hear of Africanized Honey Bees? In the fall of 2010, I added 2 queens from a very reputable apiary in Texas. They do not treat nor are their bees susceptible to Varroa so I thought it might be nice to have them in the apiary. WRONG! Last spring showed one of the queens made it through winter. As soon as they were flying we knew we had a problem. Bees were headbutting Gayla while she was over 75′ away in her garden. Every time I opened the hive, I was stung (now there is a story about what I did wrong this year, i.e. the day I was stung about 75x!). There was only one solution and that was to kill that %$#^&*# queen and requeen the hive with a nice Vermont girl from Mike. I thought the behavior would continue until the new brood was raised but within 3 – 4 days, all was back to normal. That must have been a really nasty pheromone!

The rest of the meadow just behind the hives and the tree line

Ta daa…

So there you have it! My best of for 2011. Dick Clark rates it a 5 because you can’t dance to it (sorry you have to be old to get that) but I think this was my best year in trying to understand the girls and trying to help improve the apiaries. Not everything I did worked and I never anticipate it will. It is all an experiment in nature and understanding you are not God but just someone who wants to do what’s helpful for some incredibly resilient insects.

Happy New Year. May this year be better for you than last. The world needs it.

Tonight 8,655 Peace Corps volunteers will sleep in foreign lands, bringing hope of a better tomorrow to people in 77 different nations. We are incredibly proud our daughter is one of those volunteers. Thank you for thinking of her.

Be well and make a difference, Val! We love you and will be sure to keep a candle in our window. A beeswax candle, naturally…

Share this:

Like this:

Related

2 Responses

it has been 6 years since i have had bees. i am feeling the need to get reconnected. classes would be good, again, and i’d like to get a nuc or two. can you send me information to purchase fairly local bees?

Where are you located? I’ve heard bees are getting hard to find already tho’ some folks still are taking orders. Are you looking for nucs 😉 or packages ;-(
Classes are starting soon, as well. Best to register asap. The class you take may also be able to help you with bees.